


Doesn’t Seem Like There’s Anyone For Me

by TheFamilyWeChoose118



Series: Somebody to Know, Have, and Hold [1]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Buck has a baby, Buck is a Good Dad, Buck is a single dad, Buddie shows up in Part 2, Casual Sex (mentioned but not detailed explicitly), Clubbing (mentioned), Dad Evan "Buck" Buckley, F/M, Firehose makes an appearance, Gen, Her name is Ashton, I keep saying someone needs to give Buck a baby, I would die for her and her father, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, SEAL!Buck (mentioned), Season 1 never happened, This is basically the lead up to part 2, a prologue of sorts, alcohol (mentioned), bisexual!Buck, so i did
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24873481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFamilyWeChoose118/pseuds/TheFamilyWeChoose118
Summary: After striking out with the SEALS, Buck moves back to Pennsylvania to join the fire academy. Lonely and desperate for any kind of connection he can find, Buck starts going clubbing and eventually joins a dating app. He decides it's time for a change when he discovers he has a child.-or-A prologue detailing the events leading up to Buck joining the 118.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Original Character(s)
Series: Somebody to Know, Have, and Hold [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799794
Comments: 4
Kudos: 285
Collections: 9-1-1 Tales





	1. Chapter 1

Buck had to make a lot of hard decisions over the past few years. After coming back from South America to an unwelcoming mother and father and an absent sister he hadn’t talked to in nearly a year, Buck finally decided to act on an offer he received while working in South America. He was going to join the SEALS. 

The physical training had been fairly easy. Being particularly badass was his specialty anyway. But when it came to the violence on the job, Buck shut down. After talking to a training officer and explaining that he couldn’t just shut his brain off and become a machine, his officer had suggested a new career path. Firefighting. 

He decided to move back to Pennsylvania to enroll in the academy and be near his family, hoping that eventually, Maddie would also come back. Working his way through the fire academy was a breeze compared to the SEALS training. 

After a hard day of training where he had passed one of the first physical tests and set a record at the academy, Buck decided to go out to celebrate his accomplishment. 

Though he often went to the club alone to celebrate, he rarely left by himself. Getting in shape for the SEALS and then continuing to stay fit through firefighter training meant that before he had finished his first drink, there was likely either a guy already slipping him his number or a woman trying to climb into his lap. He wouldn’t complain, though. After Maddie had left to go to college, the phone calls had become fewer and fewer, and he became more and more alone. The friends he had left from high school and his few years in college had slowly moved on with their lives too. The only people around to celebrate his accomplishments were him, the bartender, and whatever woman or man caught his eye and made a move. 

Throwing back the rest of his drink, he took the hand of a woman as she led him to the dancefloor. Grinding turned to sloppy, drunken kisses which turned into them stumbling to the nearest bathroom. The night ended the same way it almost always did. Between heavy breaths, she pulled a piece of paper with her number and name on it out of her bra and slipped it into his front pocket. “Call me,” she winked as she opened the door and left. Smiling to himself, he pushed the number further down into his pocket and followed her out. As she wandered back into the crowd, he stepped out into the cold air and called an uber to end his night the way he always did. Alone. 

Eventually, Buck decided he was tired of never knowing the names of the women he was seeing in the clubs. With a few clicks on an app, ‘Firehose’ was born, and he already had a few matches asking to meet up. 

Buck knocked on the woman’s door as it opened. “Firehose?” She asked.

“It’s Buck, actually. Are you LifeOfTheParty94?”

“Yep,” she practically purred, pulling him in the apartment by the front of his shirt as he kicked the door closed behind them. 

... 

Jackie was the closest Buck had come to a real connection in years. The day he graduated from the fire academy and received his assignment, they went to dinner to celebrate. 

Sitting in the restaurant after having finished their meal, Jackie reached across the table, grabbing Buck’s hand. “I’m so proud of you. You’re going to do great things as a firefighter.” 

“Thank you,” he smiled, the happiest he had felt in years. This felt right. Picking up their wine glasses, she toasted him and they drank.

“And, since we’re talking about futures, I think we need to talk about mine.” She looked down at her lap and back up, meeting Buck’s eyes. “I’ve decided to enroll in graduate school to finish becoming a lawyer. I’ll only be two hours away, but I think we need to talk about us. I’ll understand if you don’t want to try long distance since we haven’t been together long, but I just need to know.”

Buck nodded, taking it all in. “How long do you have until you’re moving?” 

“A week,” she put her hand over Buck’s. “But we could coordinate times to meet up between your days off and the days I won’t have school or be working.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t,” he looked away. “I’ve already been through this once, and I can’t do it again. I can’t keep putting myself through the heartache of slowly losing people that I care about.”

“I understand. I can pay for my half on the way out,” she moved her hand away from Buck’s and wiped a tear off her cheek. 

“I’ll get the check,” he smiled sadly. “You know, you’re going to do great things too. Good luck at school.”

“Goodbye, Buck.” She stood up, pecking him on the cheek and leaving him at the table. The words ‘I love you’ died in his throat as tears stung his eyes. Letting out a heavy breath, he signaled for the check and made his way home.

Buck tried to drown out the pain as best he could, cycling through the motions of work, clubbing, and meaningless hookups for months. He did anything he could do to drown out the itch to uproot his life and move two hours away with a woman he had only really known for a few months.

Nearly six months into Buck’s probationary period as a firefighter in Hershey, he received a text from Jackie asking him to meet up with him for coffee at their favorite shop. Curious, Buck decided that he would meet up with her if only to hear her out. Was it bad a small part of him hoped she had decided to leave school altogether to be with him? 

He wasn’t sure what he expected when he walked into the shop, but he didn’t expect to see Jackie sitting with what looked like a two-month-old baby at a corner table. Walking over to the table, Buck looked dumbfounded. 

“Hi, Evan,” she smiled.

“Um–hi,” he nodded and slid into the booth. 

“I guess you’re wondering why we asked you here,” she chuckled dryly and looked down at the baby in her arms. 

Buck nodded, his mouth too dry for words. 

“Well, there’s really no easy way to say this, but Buck, meet your daughter. This is Ashton.” Buck continued looking at the baby, stuck in place. “Would you like to hold her?”

Buck swallowed hard. “Yeah. I would.” 

She walked around, placing the baby in his arms, and moved back to her seat. “Hi, Ashton,” he smiled down at the baby in his arm as she wrapped her tiny hand around his finger. 

“Here’s the thing,” Jackie pulled his attention away from the baby. “I’m still going through law school. I can’t raise a child right now.” She looked down and away from Buck. “I don’t want to raise a child right now.”

“So what are the options?” Buck asked, Ashton now asleep in his arms, still holding his hand to her chest. 

“I’ve talked to a social worker. I can surrender her to a family willing to adopt her.” Buck nodded his head, looking back down to the baby. “Or we can get a custody agreement where you have full custody of Ash if you wanted to take care of her full time.” Buck’s eyes went wide as he frantically looked up. “I’ve already thought about it, and I’ve been caring for her for two months. I’m on winter break for the next month. If you wanted, I could move in with you to show you how to care for her, and then I would go back to school.” Buck turned the offer over in his head, not wanting to surrender the family he had just discovered but also realizing that he would be caring for a baby. And sure, he knows textbook ways to care for a baby, but he’s never been responsible for another living thing in his life, not even a goldfish.

Looking back at the baby in his arms and back to Jackie, what he said next surprised him a little. “When do you want to move in?”


	2. Chapter 2

Caring for a baby was harder than Buck thought it would be. Between having to arrange care for her during his shifts and taking care of her after a long shift, he was exhausted. The only thing that made it better was seeing Ashton reach for him as he picked her up from daycare and the smile on her face when he arrived home from a 72-hour shift. 

A month had passed and Jackie was back at her university, leaving Buck as the sole caregiver of their child. The night she had left, he promised that if she ever wanted to see their child again she was more than welcome. She had smiled and given Ashton a soft kiss on the forehead, walking out of their lives indefinitely. 

While Buck thought that his life would be turned upside down, he was disappointed to find that his life had returned to his lonely norm, now just with a child added to the mix. He couldn’t talk to his parents about their grandchild unless he wanted to be called a failure to his face every time they looked at him. He hadn’t talked to Maddie in nearly two years, his Christmas cards even going unanswered. She had met a guy anyway and last he heard they were happily dating. She had made it clear to Buck that he was no longer a priority and it was easier to accept it than to keep reaching out to her hoping she would return. 

Buck needed a change.

On his next shift, he knocked on the Captain’s door, entering when he was gestured in. 

“What can I do for you, Buckley?” Captain Matthews asks.

“I would like to request a transfer to a different station.”

Captain Matthews looked at Buck like he had grown another head. “You are a probationary firefighter with 5 months left. If you transfer, your probationary clock restarts.”

“I understand, sir.”

“Are you having issues here? Is there anything we can do to try to fix this so you don’t have to transfer?”

“I recently found out I have a daughter, and I want a new life with her, even if that means my clock restarts.”

“Where are you wanting to go then?”

“If you could get me a transfer, I want to go to the Los Angeles Fire Department.”

“Ah. The LAFD. Best in the country.” Buck looked at his Captain nervously. “You’d fit in well there.”

“Really?” Buck smiled.

“Of course. I’ll get in touch with the necessary people and prepare the forms. If they are approved, you’ll be transferred within the next month.”

“Thank you.”

“We’re going to miss you here.”

“I’ll miss you guys too, but I need a fresh start, and I’m never going to find it in Pennsylvania.”

Within the next month, Buck and Ash were on their way to LA for a new start.

… 

By the time Buck had moved with Ashton across the states, he had already researched childcare and had her set up with a nanny. If there was one thing Buck’s intense need for research was good for, it was finding good childcare that he would trust. He had conducted multiple interviews with Skylar and knew she would be a perfect fit. 

They agreed to a test run to see how Skylar and Ashton would get along. Buck had an hour meeting scheduled with the man who would be his new Captain at the 118. 

He walked Skylar through everything Ashton would need at least three times before she finally pushed him out the door and promised to call if she needed anything at all.

… 

Knocking on the metal door frame, the Captain waved Buck in, coming around his desk. “Come on in. Go ahead and close the door behind you.”

“Hi. Thank you for meeting with me.”

“It’s no problem. We’re excited to have you joining us, Evan. I’m Captain Bobby Nash.” Bobby shook his hand. “Please, have a seat.” Buck sat in the chair across the desk as Bobby moved back to his chair. “So, what brings you to the 118 from Pennsylvania?” 

“We just needed a fresh start.”

“We? Do you have someone that moved here with you?” 

“Yeah,” Buck smiled. “Her name is Ashton. She’s so sweet. She’s been with me for about 3 months. She’s the only family I have.”

“Wow, that’s quite a quick commitment.”

“Yeah, it was, but we’re learning one day at a time.”

Bobby nodded at that. “Well, I’ve just got a few forms for you to fill out, and then we will get you introduced to your coworkers. They’re like one big, dysfunctional family.”

Buck flashed a smile. “I think we’re going to fit in well here.”


End file.
